Does uranium power have a future?
March 15, 2011 Leave a comment
Tokyo Electric (Tepco) has 188 power stations
Hydro 160 9GW Thermal (Oil, Coal, LNG) 25 38GW Nuclear 3 (17 reactors) 17GW Total 188 64GW
3 nuclear plants produce 26% of the company’s generation capacity.
This is the reason why China won’t stop building its proposed nuclear power plants. Nuclear generates an incredible amount of power.
We know that it’s costly to build nuclear power plants and construction takes years but once operational, the cost of nuclear electricity production is low and it emits minimal greenhouse gases.
Today, the media is salivating about the prospect of reporting about the “grand-daddy” of all events. The nuclear melt-down easily outranks an earthquake, tsunami, aeroplane crash or shark attack.
As financial analysts tout coal being the “winner” as a result of this disaster, electricity prices will most likely continue their rise higher.
Don’t worry if Australia never has nuclear power. The pollies just won’t ever “get it”. Even though uranium is quite ubiquitous on earth, it is estimated that Australia has 30% of the known recoverable resources.
Currently, the world has ~ 440 nuclear reactors which (along with nuclear powered naval vessels) requires approx. 180 million pounds of uranium each year, while the world uranium production is near 90 million pounds……